13 Responses

That is a nice WV deer. And from the look of it, your dad made a very good, fast, humane shot.

I was off in Montana and preoccupied when it was time to send for my doe tag this year, and forgot until they were gone. (For the zone where we live.)

So my only chance for venison from the home turf this year will be a buck.

I’ve got a stand staked out above a trail where there are rubs. Haven’t seen him, but I know he goes there.

And it was probably his shed that I found in the hayfield this spring. Looks like a nice second year four-point antler, which would make this guy a 3-year-old and probably pretty big-bodied. (I don’t care about antlers, I’m all about the eatin’.) Both neighbors planted corn this year, too, and it’s obvious where the deer have been getting into it. They also appear to carry it — I am finding stripped dry cobs all over the hayfield and pastures and in the woods. I don’t think it’s raccoons doing it, as they didn’t bother it when it was green.

The agency bases the deer population on the number killed, which is not exactly a fair measure. Hunting has declined with the disintegration of the industrial economy “up in Ohio.” Former West Virginians who got union jobs in Ohio no longer have those good union jobs. They don’t have the disposable income to spend on hunting deer in a state they visit every once in a while.

The truth is the deer are as numerous now as they have always been. Coyotes and bocats do very little check their numbers, and it is even more beyond to belief to suggest that black bears do.

I looked up the deer regs for Calhoun County, and they are no less Byzantine than the PA Game Commission’s bureaucratic gobbledygook.

It took a lot of years to get a concurrent season and a more liberal allocation of doe tags. The biologist Gary Alt really had to work the crowds to get it through. This came with stricter rules about which antlered deer are fair game. The intent was population control + managing the herd for greater overall health and forest health, and a normal sex ratio.

Opposition to doe hunting does not come from Disney fans fretting about Bambi’s mother. It’s the Good Ol’ Boys whose Grandaddies told ’em never to shoot no girls.

They are applying 1920’s logic to 21st century deer populations. I have been forced to sit and argue with these relics, and they will make you bleed right out your ears. And they are politically powerful and never shut up.

Since the new antler regs and the expanded doe season and quotas, I’m seeing more and bigger bucks than ever, year round.

I have heard him speak. When I was in High School I got appointed to what are called Governor’s Schools. Really, it was a three-week camp with a whole bunch of West Virginia High School students at the big drinking university on the Mason-Dixon. (We were under very strict control the whole time. Let’s just say that even though I was given a full-ride scholarship there, I chose to go to a liberal arts college. Best decision of my life.)

He gave a wonderful lecture on black bears. It turns out that he had an MA from from the university (or something like that).

Opposition from doe hunting also comes from a misguided belief that this produces trophy deer. I’ve been told this many, many times.

I also remember when coyotes became relatively common that the coyotes were going to kill all deer (and also the government or the insurance companies, who didn’t like paying for deer related damages to cars, turned them loose!)

Right now, the same people who make these claims also believe that there are wolves running about. The insurance companies turned out the wolves because the coyotes weren’t doing the job.

Now, there are big coyotes. Even a 40 pounder looks like it’s as big as a golden retriever.

But if they actually came across a wolf in the woods, they would probably never go out again.

That’s just one of many conspiracy theories I’m hearing when I’m back in “the country.” I spend most of my time in Monongalia (They couldn’t spell Monongahela at Williamsburg) County plying the peer-reviewed paradigms for publishable piffle.

Our gun season starts during my finals week, and hopefully I’ll be able to at least get out once or twice to try my luck. I can’t pull a bow to save my life, so this is my one week of fun in the field during the season.